Part A – Why Aditya Birla Group is big in my life
The Aditya Birla Group, US $44.3 billion corporation is one of the most respected business groups in the country, global in every aspect operating in 34 countries with 42 nationalities being part of its nearly one and a half lac employees.
Founded by Seth Shiv Narayan Birla in 1857 it has come a long way in the next 162 years with successfully passing its baton of leadership, from one leader to another, each one contributing in his unique way to the continuous growth of the group till today, with Shri Kumar Mangalam Birla as its present chairman.
The common thing among its entire past and present chairman is, continuing with its corporate values of hard work, sincerity, integrity, and most important nation and its people first, with high ethical standards intact till today. They have always worked silently and let their work speak through a selfless contribution to the betterment of the country, society, and employees at large with a focus on raising the human development index. Not surprising the proof being Aditya Birla Group was named the AON best employer in India for 2018 – the 3rd time over the last 7 years.
They have contributed in a big way in making the country self-reliant before and after independence by building world-class manufacturing facilities, few ranking among the first three in the world, earning global respect for India and themselves.
With the group having an interest and operating in multiple sectors and various industries, it has touched each one of us and has become part of our life with its world-class products and services. Be it the industries linked to Cement, Aluminium, Carbon Black, Telecom, Insurance, Viscose Fibre, and Apparel, the list goes on. Aditya Birla Group has its foot-prints everywhere in a leadership position.
We realise to what extent its part of our daily life and preference is, when it is learnt that, Ultra-Tech Cement for the bridges we drive on and house we live in, Vodafone-Idea for mobile service, Allen Solly, Peter England, Van Heusen, Louis Philippe shirt brands we proudly own, Linen Club dress material, Fresh Wrapp kitchen foils, Pantaloons & People, for ready to wear clothing, and the list goes on, into Insurance and financial services, are all owned and created for us by no other than Aditya Birla group proving it to be a truly Global National Flagship company.
Part B – How I overcame challenges to achieve my ambitions in life so far
Sooner or later everyone has to experience coming across the first-time significant challenge, demanding decision making on your own, putting oneself in testing waters with the hope and confidence to fulfill certain ambitions you developed in due course of work and profession.
I came across such a challenge while working for a top Indian IT multinational in Pune, after earning my Engineering degree. All was going great, was enjoying my work and the work environment and was applauded and praised for my performance. More than two years passed by and I was in my third year of the job when I realized something missing in the sense that the opportunity to learn something new is getting far less with time.
It was the time I thought should upgrade my skill sets and knowledge to qualify for exploring new professional goals to achieve a higher level of success and professional satisfaction, which led to my decision of pursuing and earning full time post graduate degree in field of management from a top-notch Indian institute, and started planning for it.
This meant taking a grave risk of saying goodbye to a well-settled, comfortable job with a guarantee of a decent pay package, which is hard these days to come by, given rising unemployment of well educated, in the economy.
As if this was not all, while I was pondering over my decision to start preparing and then plan to quit this job, a surprise offer from the organization came to work at our Australian office for couple of years, which was too tempting with salary in dollars!!!, which meant continuing with the same routine in another country.
This put me in a further dilemma and it became very tough for me now to decide, whether to review my plan of achieving my long-term ambitions or choose the tempting offer to go overseas.
Analyzing every possible pros and cons I held on with my plans for taking up the challenge of preparing for selection to top ranking management institute which I did, though it was very taxing and exhausting due office commitments and preparation for entrance.
Today when I look back, I feel that moment /phase was my most difficult and challenging time so far and feel confident and happy today that I decided right in choosing a path to achieve long-term benefits, instead of falling for tempting short term offers.